It was, rather, the unified position that Europe took for the first time in the rivalry between the Sultan and the Egyptian vali: at five in the morning of the very same day that Husrev was to reply to Mehmed Ali’s demands (27 July 1839) the representatives of the five European powers (Great Britain, France, Prussia, Austria and Russia) handed the Grand Vizier a collective note asking the Porte “to suspend any final determination [of the Eastern Question] without their concurrence.” This gave Husrev the breathing space he needed, and with a unified Europe behind him, which denied Mehmed Ali the French assistance he was counting on, he not only rejected the vali’s demands for his own resignation, but repeated his demands that the vali hand back areas he had occupied and return the Ottoman fleet that had defected to Alexandria.

Builds on: "Great-power rivalry turned Egypt's crisis into a European-balance matter."

Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed…, loc. 1561